Kyle Busch wins Nashville Trucks race

Associated Press

Friday, April 22, 2011 | 8:15 p.m.

Sprint Cup star Kyle Busch raced to his second NASCAR Trucks Series victory of the season, passing Ron Hornaday Jr. on a late restart and easily holding off Nelson Piquet Jr. on Friday night at Nashville Superspeedway.

Busch, also the Nashville winner last spring, led 140 of 150 laps on the 1.333-mile concrete oval. He also won the Trucks race in Phoenix in February and has 26 series victories in 89 starts. In addition to Busch's two victories, Kasey Kahne won the March race at Darlington in Busch's No. 18 Toyota.

"I felt like had a winning truck, a dominant truck, actually," Busch said. "It would have been a shame not to win here today."

Hornaday slipped in front of Busch in Turn 3 with nine laps to go. A caution for Max Papis' spin allowed Hornaday to stay in the lead for the restart with three laps to go. Hornaday opened a lead off the restart, but Busch rebounded quickly and nosed past the 52-year-old Hornaday before they completed a lap.

"It might have been boring, I guess, for about the first 140 laps or so, but Ron came up there and made things interesting," Busch said. "He's hell of a wheelman, that old man still gets after it. I'll tell you that. He definitely gave us a whirl wind there."

Timothy Peters was third, followed by Hornaday, James Buescher, Matt Crafton, Johnny Sauter, David Starr, Craig Goess and Parker Kligerman.

Piquet, a former Formula One driver who is a rookie on the Trucks circuit, was fourth on the restart, but charged on the final lap to finish second.

"I knew I had better tires than Timothy," Piquet said. "I knew that every time I was throwing my truck to the outside, it was really gripping. I still don't understand why, so I risked it those two last laps. I risked going to the outside and it worked."

Busch started from the pole for the second straight year en route to his third Nashville victory, including his controversial Nationwide Series win when he smashed the trophy Gibson Guitar in Victory Lane.

He will attempt to pull off a double Saturday in the Nationwide race.

"I like Nashville," Busch said. "It's a fun place for me and neat racetrack, a fun racetrack."